Ringing filled Adams' ears.

  What happened? He thought. The last thing he remembered was feeling his body start to transform into his beast form as the balcony gave way under the weight of him and Michael’s rapidly expanding bodies.

  The fact that the balcony broke wasn’t too surprising. Even prior to their class selection, Adam wouldn’t have trusted that the worn down structure would hold under the weight of his new form, let alone the weight of both of them.

  As his consciousness slowly came back to him, the ringing sound faded to a dull echo that he recognized as the sound of system notifications.

  He tried to blink his eyes and take in the surroundings but for some reason, he couldn't make out more than blurred shapes. Concerned, Adam focused on his other senses. A faint sense of pressure could be felt across his body, sounds from his surroundings were muffled and all he could taste and smell was a mild iron that reminded him of blood. Almost like he has a split lip but with none of the accompanied pain.

  How weird…

  While having dampened senses confused him, Adam wasn’t too concerned as his newer reliance on his bestial instincts assured him of his own safety. He wasn’t sure how, but he knew that he was safe. He also knew that there were others around him. Michael, Henry and Everett were instantly recognizable but he could feel a couple other presences approaching.

  Once more turning to his instincts for guidance, Adam focused on the system messages that were producing the dull ringing sound. Overlaying his blurred vision were four system windows.

  The first was a finalization of Adam’s unused skill from level three; Empowered Sense. As this was the first time he had activated his Beast Transformation since earning it, he was learning which of his five base senses was being permanently augmented. Focusing his intent pulled up the specifics of the augmentation.

  Upon reading the messages, a sense of understanding washed over him. It wasn’t that all of his other senses had diminished. In actuality, he wasn’t relying on his other senses as much because he was being overwhelmed by the information provided by his new Tremorsense ability.

  His second system message took him by surprise.

  Once again, the taste of blood and the feeling of a skull being crushed within his jaws bloomed in his mind. Apparently, he could increase his stats by adding more bones to his title? A boost to his Dexterity was greatly appreciated and made a lot of sense based on how the creature had moved when he had fought it.

  Honestly, it’s more surprising that I had originally gained a point in Vitality from the sabercats. Out of everything I experienced in the tutorial, they were clearly the most dexterous beings.

  The third and fourth messages were easily brushed aside as they informed him that he had free stat points to allocate and gave more details about the skills he had gained. Those could be completed later, after learning what had happened to him physically.

  Understanding that his muddled senses were likely due to his unconscious mind trying to protect him, Adam once again tried to focus his vision. A brief pulse of a headache flared through his mind as he attempted to return his senses to normal. Having not moved since the fall, Adam was lying on its side with his head laying on the ground.

  Standing before him were Henry and Everett. Everett’s red skin paled as he looked him in the eye from a few feet away.

  Why does he look so shocked? Adam wondered before remembering, I completely forgot. He hasn’t seen us in our beast forms yet.

  As he stared back at Everett, Adam had a realization. Wait… how are we almost eye to eye right now?

  After the fall, Adam had ended up laying across the floor of the lobby with his lower jaw flat against the ground and bits of rubble atop his body. There was no way that he, laying down, and Everett, standing, should be so close to the same level.

  Then Everett’s pale face began to make sense.

  Did I… did I grow?

  A smiling Henry stepped in front of Everett and threw his arms wide, “Damn dude, you guys are making me jealous! I choose my class and get the chance to learn or make a style of swordsmanship, which on its own is badass. Sylvia gets to throw magic spells and stuff, becoming a literal mage. But then you and Michael get a whole ass light show and transformation sequence!” he turned to Everett, “Did you get the light show when you chose your rare class?”

  Everett’s eyes were still locked on Adam. With his new ability, Adam could feel each slight movement as Everett shifted back and away from Adam.

  “Yea, there were definitely bright lights, but nothing like this.”

  Based on the way he shuffled back a step, and the faint scent in the air, Adam knew that the man was afraid of him.

  A shift in the rubble to his side caused Adam to turn his head. The sweeping motion shook more broken cement from his body as he turned to take in the form beside him.

  Michael had also started moving.

  Previously, the professor had taken the form of what could only be described as a large white dire wolf. Other than the fact that he was really really big, Michael’s form was basically identical to a normal wolf. That was no longer the case.

  Gone was the pure white coat, replaced by a mantle of black. As he moved, the fur almost glistened, reflecting light in the same way that an oil slick would. While the majority of his fur was black, there were some very noticeable patches of white that bore resemblance to a very well known creature; the orca. His underside and two large spots behind his eyes were the only remaining sections of his body with an opalescent white fur.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  The resemblance to an orca didn't stop there though, as Michael’s body had grown in length with the majority of the added length being a long muscular fluke-like tail that was also covered in fur. Even with the addition of the orca features, Michael still was clearly canine. His snout had widened and his ears looked as if they could fold in tight to his skull, though they currently stood up tall from his skull, looking almost like an odd set of furry flippers. Lastly, along his spine was a dorsal fin. While shorter than what you would normally see on an orca, it was still obviously a dorsal fin.

  A combination of a wolf and an orca sounds terrifying and normally it would be. However, Adam felt himself chuff and rumble as he chuckled at the man. Rather than seeming vicious or dangerous, Adam watched as the old man inspected himself to the best of his ability, turning in circles to try and see his own tail.

  Adam’s rumble must have gotten his attention because the professor stopped spinning and whipped his head to look towards him. Flipper-ears wiggling, Michael’s eyes narrowed.

  “Are you laughing at me, young man?” a familiar voice filled his mind.

  Adam instantly froze. Did I just hear Michael talk?!

  Seemingly proud of the fact that he surprised Adam, the old man spun in a circle before sitting down like a dog. The awkwardness of his new tail was obvious to anyone that watched him but Adam was having a hard time finding it funny.

  “Can you hear me?” he thought towards Michael.

  “Oh, that's convenient” he heard back, “I wasn’t sure if this would work both ways.” He flicked his head, “You should get up. It can’t be very comfortable to be covered in all that rubble, even if you have grown so much.”

  As he communicated with Michael, Adam was hyper aware of the fact that others were watching. He turned to look at Henry, who had gotten even closer to the two of them.

  While Everett was obviously still shaken, Henry seemed to have quickly recovered and moved towards Michael’s sitting form.

  As Adam started to shake off the dust and rubble on his form, Henry circled around Michael, intensely inspecting him.

  After fully circling the man, Henry said, “You look like a cross between Vaporeon and Toothless.”

  WHACK.

  “Ouch! What did you do that for, old man?! It’s a compliment!”

  “I don’t even know what those things are.”

  “HOLY SHIT, You can talk now?!”

  Surprisingly, Adam could hear Michael even when he talked to Henry. As he shrugged out of the pieces of the broken balcony, Adam asked, “Can everyone hear us now?” He easily stood up as the weight fell off of him. Aside from the introduction of his tremorsense, Adam felt the same as the last time he had taken this form. Well, other than the fact that he was WAY bigger than before.

  Previously when interacting with the others, he had laid on the ground so that Emi could reach his neck to equip him with the bandana. This time he sat in the same way that Michael was. I don’t think that's going to fit anymore.

  Michael responded to the question by shaking his head. It looked a little odd, seeing a beast move in the same way that a human would but Adam just accepted it as the new reality. Hell he had tusks now.

  “People can only hear my voice,” Michael responded. “One of my new skills allows me to communicate with others while I am in my beast form. Apparently, I can project my statements to multiple people at once, but it seems that while I can hear your responses, Adam, others cannot.”

  “Interesting. That means that you and I can have silent conversations in these forms.”

  “True. We will need to test out how far this form of communication goes, I wouldn’t want to rely on it and have it fail.”

  “Agreed.” As they spoke the doors Adam could feel that others were approaching the auditorium doors. “We can play with our new skills later, people are about to come out here,” Adam told Michael, “and based on what I am feeling, it's a lot of them.”

  Before Michael was able to relay that information to Henry and the still frozen Everett, the doors to the auditorium flung open, revealing a small group of people. In the front were Otto, Tang and Dimitri, both of whom stopped beside the slowly recovering Everett. Behind them was a small contingent of other survivors, each of which stopped before fully exiting.

  A silence fell over the group as they took in the sight of Adam and Michael.

  As if it were his calling, Henry lightened the mood once again by casually walking up to Otto, who in turn was staring at Adam with his brows furrowed and fists clenched. When Adam turned to regard his rune covered friend, the look of frustration vanished from his face, replaced by one of cautious calm.

  As he approached Otto, Henry asked, “Hey dude, did you think about bringing the spare clothes for these guys? As… Impressive as they are, we wouldn’t want them flashing everyone again.” He paused for a second and turned to face Adam, “Actually, now that I think about it, they are probably flashing everyone right now.” He exaggerated his movements and started scanning Adam's body.

  Caught completely off guard by the statement of his friend, Adam instantly shifted backward and laid on his stomach, loafing like a giant cat, in embarrassment.

  WHACK!

  “Damn, how long is your tail?!”

  A laugh rang out from the group as Tang and the other athletes moved towards them.

  Otto sighed towards Henry, who had moved back to Michael and was busy trying to smack the man with his sheathed sword, before walking to the wall where another banner had somehow survived the changed world. Grabbing the material with both hands, he ripped it from its hangings before tearing it in half again. He tossed a portion to Adam and Michael.

  “How do you two feel about togas?” he asked.

  Once the material was available, Adam initiated his transformation back to his human form. With his increase in size, the rapid change back to human felt like it went faster despite the fact that it took about the same amount of time. After a couple seconds, Adam once again felt a cold draft across his skin as his fur disappeared, quickly being replaced by a length of itchy canvas material.

  The first thing he noticed upon returning to human form, other than the cold breeze across his skin, was the lack of awareness. The flood of information that came from his active tremorsense, completely disappeared, leaving a portion of his mind still and yet restless. Still, because there was less information bombarding his senses, but restless because he felt like he was missing something.

  Adam stood from where he was crouched with the cloth, adjusting it to wrap around his waist, leaving his upper body bare. Across from him, Michael also completed his transformation back to human, choosing to follow Otto’s suggestion and wrapping the banner around his body as if it were a toga.

  Now that they were human again, the people that had previously stayed back, began to move again, emerging from the auditorium while keeping cautious eyes on the two of them. Adam noticed that while some of the onlookers seemed to be curious, many more were distrusting.

  Shit. That looks concerning.

  He was pulled back to his friends when Everett walked right up to Adam. Gone was the fear from his eyes, washed away by curiosity and interest. Antennae twitching, the man moved from Adam to Michael before letting out an exasperated laugh.

  “What are you guys?”

  Before either of them could answer, a voice from the group behind them answered.

  “Monsters. They’re monsters.”

  Standing amongst the people that had emerged from the auditorium was a man in his forties. Average in every way, the man only stood out because he was armed with a metal pole. His mid length brown hair clung to his sweat dampened forehead and even while in his human form, Adam could smell the fear wafting off his body.

  The man brandished his metal pipe towards them as he continued, “The two of them are monsters in human skin. You all saw it! They walked in here and pretended to be humans. Then after we let them in, they started breaking stuff so it would be easier for the other monsters to round us up.”

  Tang stepped towards the man, “Woah, they aren’t monsters, man, it's just skills—”

  “NO!” the man cut him off, “It’s not just them, it’s those two as well” he gestured towards Otto and Everett, “They ain’t human. What kind of person has red skin and bug antennas like that? Or glowing eyes and weird tattoos?!” The man was slowly backing through the crowd back towards the doorway. The others that Adam had seen were distrustful towards them, slowly started moving together as well.

  His barely coherent rambling continued as he stepped into the doorway, blocking anyone from returning to the auditorium.

  “...and this just ain’t right. You demons, aliens, or monsters, I don’t care what you are but why don’t you just get out of here. Leave us normal people alone. You bastards are just going to cause more damage if you—”

  Rising from the shadows behind him, an electric blue light flared into existence as a glowing wrench materialized in the air behind his head.

  One of the people that seemed to support the man tried to warn him as the glowing wrench came down across the back of his head. The man's eyes rolled back as he crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

  Stepping out from the shadowed doorway, Emi caused the wrench to disappear with a blink of electric blue light.

  “Sorry, I don’t know what was going on, but he seemed kinda psycho. What’s everyone doing out here?” she looked around at everyone and shrugged before pointing at Tang, “You seemed like you were in charge earlier. I found some other crafters in here and we are going to fix this place up. Come help deal with the… people... that are being annoying.” Then she turned and disappeared into the auditorium again.

  Silence reigned over the group once more.

  Michael turned to Tang, “Looks like you’re the boss now.”

  Tang blinked in confusion, “How the hell did she get that idea?”

  “Doesn’t matter now,” said Henry, “I just don’t want to be on her bad side, so we should head in.”